Jurors at the ongoing Old Bailey trial of former Deputy President of the Senate, Ike Ekweremadu; his wife, Beatrice; their daughter, Sonia and Dr Obinna Obeta were told last Friday that the Crown Prosecution built their case on the lies of a “consummate and cunning liar.”
This, according to the senator’s lawyer, Martin Hicks, KC, is “an inconvenient truth” for the Crown.
According to Hicks, who was making his closing statement, David Nwamini, on whom the “conspiracy to facilitate and arrange travel with the aim of exploitation” centred, was not plucked off the streets of Lagos and trafficked to the United Kingdom.
He noted that neither does the evidence support what Nwamini told the Police on May 5, last year, that he was a 15-year-old orphan who didn’t know why he was brought to the United Kingdom.
Hicks, who satirically titled his closing statement “An Inconvenient Truth” when he started last Thursday, told the jury that the Crown cashed in on Nwamini’s allegations, having realised they had a “high profile politician” whose “high profile prosecution” could be used to set precedent for their organ donation’s strand of the Modern Slavery Act.
Addressing the jury, he said: “If you’re going to convict Ike Ekweremadu, do so if the evidence demands it and not because we need to send a message to the rest of the world that we don’t condone organ trafficking.”
Hicks countered what the Crown prosecutor, Hugh Davies, KC, said in his own closing statement last Wednesday, where he claimed the senator treated “body parts as commodities” for which he paid compensation in exchange for a potential donor’s kidney.
Referencing what Obeta told the court during his evidence, Hicks said, “Obeta was pretending to be negotiating with an agent and donor.” But according to him, he didn’t discuss with an agent or donor; it’s a scam.
Continuing, Hicks said when Nwamini was found unsuitable, “no request was made,” and “no demand was made,” for a refund of the four and a half million naira paid by the senator. Obeta himself said in evidence “they didn’t ask for it.”
Hicks told the jurors: “If you want to find out the truth, follow the money. The bank statement – of Obeta – tell the story.”
The doctor told the court during cross-examination that he didn’t discuss any payment with Nwamini and so didn’t give him the N3.5 million quoted to Diwe, the senator’s younger brother.
Refuting Nwamini’s claims about not knowing why he was brought to the UK, Hicks read the clinical notes of February 25 that Dr. Peter DuPont wrote after seeing Nwamini at the Royal Free Hospital last year. In it, Nwamini said he told DuPont that he “wasn’t offered anything,” to donate his kidney.
Last Thursday, Obeta’s barrister, Ms Howes, KC, also told jurors to disregard the claim by Davies that Nwamini was offered payment to donate his kidney.
She told them: “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, if you take the view that this evidence points to the fact that Dr Obeta had that N4.5 million in his account and it didn’t go anywhere, then that’s what it was. Compensation for him.”
On the lies that Dr (Mrs) Ekweremadu and the Senator admitted to – and also apologised for – about Sonia being a maternal cousin, Howes reiterated to the jury that “it’s a lie,” but did point out that “that’s not what this case is about.”
